Research Resources

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Research Administration Core

The purposes of the Research Administration Core are to provide (1) a central resource for recruiting research subjects, (2) assistance with the recruitment of Hispanic and other minority research subjects, and (3) a team of research coordinators.

Research Network Core

In addition to collaborations with investigators in a variety of disciplines at UNC, the Center has an ever-expanding Research Network of collaborating institutions outside UNC for large-scale, multi-center studies. These strategic alliances have been developed to take advantage of the specialized skills and expertise of investigators at other sites and to increase the pool of research subjects participating in Center studies. The Research Network has benefited from the development of new technologies for web-based data acquisition/sharing and research subject recruitment, as well as a growing library of FGID-related scannable and Internet-based questionnaires in different languages. The purposes of the Research Network Core are to (1) provide administrative support from the UNC Center for funded research collaborations; (2) provide data management for multi-center studies; and (3) provide Center investigators with research-ready sites with proven abilities, both nationally and internationally, to facilitate the funding of large-scale, multi-center studies.

Data Acquisition & Technology Applications Core (DATA)

The DATA Core provides researchers with sophisticated data acquisition and data-sharing methodologies, data management, and archiving of research data to facilitate the conduct of large studies (especially multi-site studies) by our UNC research team and our national and international Research Network collaborators. Capabilities of this core include (1) creating and scanning of machine-readable questionnaires, (2) internet surveys, (3) programs and websites for managing multi-site studies, (4) secure server for multi-site studies, (5) PDA-based symptom surveys, and (6) automated telephone data entry.

Education & Dissemination Core

The goals of the Education & Dissemination Core are to (1) meet the educational needs of patients and the general public, (2) educate health care providers in the diagnosis and treatment of functional GI and motility disorders, (3) disseminate research findings to professional and lay audiences, and (4) to utilize the Internet for the recruitment of research study subjects and for the conduct of internet-based surveys and other research projects.